Two Israeli intelligence officials told BuzzFeed that the “golden showers” dossier has been circulating around the global intelligence community for several months—and that the allegations in it aren’t the only concern. One of them said that he and many of his counterparts around the world are looking into “the extent to which Trump might have ties, or have a weakness of some type, to Russia.”

One of those angles might be illegal campaign donations. The BBC reports that the CIA is looking into reports that Russia donated to Trump’s campaign.

BuzzFeed also revealed that it obtained the dossier from Israeli intelligence, who in turn got it from an unnamed country in Western Europe. According to the BBC, one of the Baltic states forwarded the memo to Washington.

This sounds a bit like the INC providing info on WMDs. The Baltic states are anxious Putin has eyes on them and they suspect NATO will not honor its promise to defend them. I think it may be a legitimate concern especially with Mr Trump in office.

The argument would be if the Baltic states could provide enough ammo, they could neutralize Mr Trump, who would be replaced by a serious person.

Is it possible the Russians have kompromat? sure. If Mr Trump can grab puzzy then he believes he could do anything and be inoculated from accountability.

Of course one has to wonder why foreign intelligence agencies are taking the dossier seriously? I think they suspect there is >50% probability some of it is true, especially considering his complete lack of adversarial statements regarding Putin.

_________________________ignorance is the enemywithout equality there is no liberty

Allegedly the Israelis are saying there is enough there that several countries are investigating. They have not validated anything in the dossier yet or ever.

The basis for that belief is the astounding number of Russian-Trump campaign connections and the frequent statements from Mr Trump wanting a close relationship with Russia.

If I lived in the Baltic states, I would have applied for a visa to anywhere. I can easily see Mr Trump selling out NATO for a "good" relationship with Russia.

There is an idea worth considering. Suppose Mr Trump was actually a real player. The target is China. He could be playing a real life high stakes game to ally the US with the Russians against the Chinese. Ostensibly the price of friendship may be the Baltic states or more.

There are visible problems with this argument. By allying with the Russians he would ebe effectively enhance Iran and Syria, forming a potent sphere in the ME separating SA and Israel. This would essentially turn the world order on its head. Kamchatka may be available.

Perhaps this is what is disturbing to the Israelis i.e. a restructure not in their best interest. Or we can speculate some more.

_________________________ignorance is the enemywithout equality there is no liberty

NATO crumbles, the United States stands alone, Russia attempts an invasion.It is put down but not neatly, not efficiently and not decisively, despite the small scale and the target, which while not a major U.S. city, still represents a strategic area of the USA.It is a target and an attack selected to send a message, that Russia has our number, and can contemplate a larger invasion, and an all out war, at a time and place of its choosing.The message is driven home in an undeniable way and precipitates a massive national security, economic and constitutional crisis, all of which threaten the extinction of democracy, which is really Russia's actual goal in the first place. America becomes embroiled in a civil war.With American democracy on life support, the world realizes that the United States is not only no longer a superpower, it is an ailing and corrupt banana republic which cannot be trusted and which can be safely ignored.And naturally, our crippled and profit besotted press frames it in such a way that it benefits our new fascist strongman, Donald Trump, the best friend Vladimir Putin ever had.America as we knew it, is dead and buried, fifty-one years after Nikita Kruschev's prophetic words.

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"He wakes up in the morning, ****s all over Twitter, ****s all over us, ****s all over his staff, then hits golf balls."---Congressman Peter King

The Russians gave him a load of money and then he spent "his money" on the campaign. This has a 99% probability.

As far as him being compromised, well I heard somebody say any 10 year old with a smartphone has seen more dirt on Trump than anything the Russians could come up with, unless he's screwing sheep or preteens. Honestly 1/10th the dirt we all know would have sunk any previous candidate. Watergate lost Nixon the Presidency, and it seems tame in comparison now.

As a person, any reasonably rational person would conclude Mr Trump is a morally reprehensible narcissistic slug.

The contribution thing is worth considering. The problem as in most cases is unless it is blatant, it will be hard to find the numerous shells which disguised the alleged contribution. Since some IRS PAC's do not have to release donor lists, is it possible the money could easily be hidden in that way.

On the flip side, if one considers Russian hacking as having some monetary value, then it would be straight forward, but that sounds like a long convoluted argument without much merit regarding the law.

I have not read the dossier but do think the collusion allegation is the best avenue of pursuit, if one is looking for evidence of illegal activities.

_________________________ignorance is the enemywithout equality there is no liberty

I suspect it is a lot simpler than that. Russians gave him loans and then later he spent money on his campaign. Money is fungible. That means that there is no such thing as separate piles of money reserved for specific things. If he has control of all that money then Russians financed his campaign.

This is the basic problem with international businessmen running for the Presidency. They ALL violate the Emoluments Clause. They all had illegal foreign campaign contributions, if they personally supply anything to their own campaigns.

I'm kind of out of the speculation game right now. I expect this thing to fly off the rails at some point but at the moment Democrats are running around in circles screaming that the sky is falling.I don't disagree with them but for now there is little to be done about it. Mostly I see all of it as a waiting game. Donald Trump will be president. Congress will be controlled by Republicans. A conservative agenda will be enacted and the four horsemen of the apocalypse will be unleashed. There will be conquest, war, famine, and death. All this petty speculation will pale beside the reality that is soon to come.And Republicans are going to f*cking own it.